


bloom

by squishelle



Series: mythical creatures [1]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Faeries - Freeform, M/M, References to captivity, Selkies, this is so self indulgent im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 13:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16517279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squishelle/pseuds/squishelle
Summary: “Of course. I should have known the moment I tasted the sea in the air. You’re not human at all, little seal. What are you doing so far from home?”





	bloom

**Author's Note:**

> so i decided to put this up on ao3 as well and make it a series! this is inspired by this thread i made on twitter: 
> 
> https://twitter.com/fightmehyuk/status/1056919946737958913?s=21
> 
> I’m not entirely sure where to go with this atm but let’s just go with the flow?

  
  


The village is unusually quiet. Sanghyuk has never seen it for himself, but has heard the ever-present bustling sounds of the stalls in the granary square, the calls of children playing, the sounds of the mill turning. A constant thrum of human voices, noises and actions. Tonight, there is no one in sight, and the mill lies still; Sanghyuk’s breath seems too loud to his ears. 

 

Sanghyuk only realizes he’s made it out of the house when the bone-settling chill of the night air ruffles his thin clothes. He wraps his coat around himself, fingers fumbling with the fur and runs. His footsteps are too loud and he’s not entirely sure where he’s going until his bare feet reach gravel and stone and the thick stench of fish and salt enshrouds him. 

 

There’s a line of huts ahead of him, but beyond that Sanghyuk can just about make out the frothy, white waves of the sea. Something deep within him wrenches open at the sight. As if his very soul has torn open his body, reaching, desperately, towards the water. His coat tightens around him in anticipation. 

 

He’s walking, weaving through the nets strewn about by fisherman, steering clear of the open windows, until his toes are digging into sand. He’s almost reached the water when he stops in despair. If he returns, he’ll be found again. His mast- the man will find him again, as he once did. In fact, he’d expect Sanghyuk to rush towards the sea. Sanghyuk will never be able to go home. The furs covering his body sag, weighing him down. 

 

Sanghyuk turns around, his back to the sea, and struggles to move. The salt of his tears enters his mouth and with each step, he can feel something in him shrivel and die. He slumps back towards the market square, and walks on, feet beginning to burn on the ice-cold pavemented streets. 

 

The night is eerily quiet, and Sanghyuk’s not sure why it seems as if the village has been left deserted. The houses lay dark, not a light in sight. The only light comes from the dimly lit street lamps, and the bright, bulbous moon. As he passes the large farmhouses bordering the woods, Sanghyuk feels his stomach clench. The animals on the farms have been locked inside, and the barns lie vacant. What was going on? And where could he go?

 

Sanghyuk stops short in front of the door of a large, sprawling farmhouse. It looks abandoned, the lights off, the only sound coming from the incessant trickling of the stream surrounding it, disappearing into the line of trees edging the woods. What arrests Sanghyuk is the spread of food parcels and bushels of flowers lying on the doorstep, as if left out for people to take. There’s a haunting symbol etched in dark, red ink on the wood of the door; Sanghyuk ignores it in favour of gathering up the food in stilted movements, wrapping his coat around the parcels. He jerks away and begins jogging away from the house.

 

He’s already at the edge of the woods before he can even think. The coniferous trees in front of him stand tall and dark, swaying in the cold air, and Sanghyuk feels a daze envelope him. His feet begin walking over the threshold of shrubbery, and the world falls away. 

He’s immediately assaulted with a cacophony of noises all around him, and it makes his head spin. Where the village was quiet as the dead, the forest is seeped with the sounds of life, of music. Sanghyuk can feel it thrum within his body, as if it’s coming from  _ inside  _ him. He can barely see, flashes of pine, pitch black, and dancing. But the moon seems to steep lower, burning brighter than ever. Sanghyuk hears the call of home within him, the call of the sea. But it’s not calling him away, it seems to be pulling him further into the forest. 

 

He stumbles over his own feet, letting the unfamiliar music carry him. The more he walks, the closer he gets to whatever seems to be wrenching him away from everything he knows; the music gets louder, chaotic in its order. He’s not at all careful, branches crackling under his feet, dirt kicking up and onto his pant leg. He’s sure he looks a little mad, but he can’t stop until he gets there, until he sees- sees it.

 

Suddenly, there’s light all around him. Shapes in the air, dashing around, moving too fast for him to see, blinding him with their light. They’re moving in a disordered path, and Sanghyuk feels himself move with them. Until they reach a little clearing and the lights fade away. At first, Sanghyuk can’t quite see anything. Then slowly, as if bleeding into existence, Sanghyuk sees a fire, a bonfire larger than he has ever seen. It seems to touch the very sky, embers flickering, dying into the black of the night. Then he sees them, figures moving around the fire, no, dancing, dancing too fast for Sanghyuk to really see. 

 

All at once, a feeling of animosity slaps into him. In his very bones, Sanghyuk feels a sense of abnormality, as if he isn’t welcome here. He backs away, almost tripping over his feet and dropping the bundled coat in his arms, and hides behind a large rock, the branches of the trees hanging low enough to hide him. 

 

He watches from behind the rock, eyes slowly adjusting to the magic in front of him. The figures seem to solidify and they-they look human. Sanghyuk feels his stomach drop as his body floods with fear. He gears himself up to run, run away as fast as he can. Then one of the figures comes closer to him and Sanghyuk can’t look away. The figure is naked, body covered with bark, leaves sprouting all over its arms and legs. Sanghyuk’s never seen creatures like this. In the sea, he’s seen other humanoid creatures like himself, meshed with the bodies of sea animals and plants. But this creature- it seems as if the earth grows from within it. Sanghyuk almost expects it to metamorph completely, into a beautiful tree.

 

The others are much the same, as if bleeding from the forest around them. There’s something so hypnotic about watching them; the more Sanghyuk watches their dance, the more he feels himself fall deeper into a daze. There’s no pattern to their dance, no order at all. It’s chaotic and dizzying and Sanghyuk feels overwhelmed. The bonfire burns higher, and a strange energy fills Sanghyuk. He clutches his coat tightly, accidentally crushing the food in it, a hard lump forming in his throat. The strangeness doesn’t seem evil. But nothing about it is good, either. 

 

He’s not sure how long he sits there. But something in him tells him to wait, to watch. And he does; he watches as the creatures dance faster, moving around the fire in odd shapes and sizes. More and more of them join in, materialising in front of the fire. The fire crackles and booms, getting louder and higher, until the night sky is filled with the light from its embers. Sanghyuk doesn’t realise he’s sobbing until the salt of his tears reaches his mouth. He’s drenched with a gut-wrenching sense of longing. He wants to go home, far away from here, far away from the world of humans. Memories flood his mind, memories he’d kept buried for years, terrified that he’d forget if he ever managed to escape. Staring into the blinding light of the fire, Sanghyuk can see his mother. Tall, and proud, teaching him how to leave the sea behind for a few hours, the stars etched into her skin. He sees himself, sulky and homesick, not a minute out of the water, sitting petulantly on top of his furs. His mother, laughing and grabbing him, bundling him up and holding him close. Then they vanish, little Sanghyuk and his mother, the fire eating them up, and Sanghyuk feels his mouth hang open in a gutless scream. 

 

Suddenly, a warm hand grabs his jaw, muting his voice. Sanghyuk screams into the hand, furs dropping to the ground, as he tries desperately to wrench himself away. “Shh, quiet, little one. You don’t want them to know you’re here do you? They won’t take it kindly,” a dulcet, saccharine voice whispers into his ears, prickling at the hairs on his neck. 

 

Sanghyuk whips his head around and comes face to face with the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen. It’s crouched behind Sanghyuk, gentle hands resting on his shoulders. It appears to be a man, a man with the brightest golden eyes, and small violet and blue flowers etched into the sides of his neck, all the way down to his chest. Twisted horns sit snug on the top of the man’s head, nestled within thick black hair, curling at the ends. He’s wearing a thin garment, almost like a greek chiton, stretched across muscled limbs. Sanghyuk almost misses the low-hanging wings behind the man, blending into the dark of the night. Sanghyuk struggles to breathe. 

 

“What did you see?” the man asks, a small smirk on his mouth, golden eyes slanted in mirth. Sanghyuk finally finds his voice and stutters out a garbled question. The man chuckles and sits back to sit on his haunches. 

 

“You saw something in the flames, didn’t you? Humans always do. So what was it? Your deepest, darkest fears? A vision of your death? Most see their deaths.”

 

“It was- it was a memory.”

 

The man tilts his head. The flowers on his skin seem to grow and die constantly, blooming over his collarbones, over his shoulders, pulsing. He follows Sanghyuk’s eyes, glancing at himself and his eyes widen minutely. He clicks his tongue. “That’s interesting. You can also see me in my entirety, can’t you?” He seems to speak to himself. Sanghyuk nods, fingers itching to fumble with his furs, until he realises his coat isn’t in his hands anymore. He starts, and looks around frantically, picking up his coat from the forest floor and hugging it to himself. The man studies him and then smiles beatifically. 

 

“Of course. I should have known the moment I tasted the sea in the air. You’re not human at all, little seal. What are you doing so far from home?”

 

“I’m not here by choice. I managed to get away. But I can’t go back home- he’ll, they’ll just find me again, that’s what they do. There were many like me but I don’t- I think I’m the only one left.” Sanghyuk’s surprised by the breathiness of his voice, his grief sitting so apparent on his tongue. 

 

The man’s eyes harden,“So, humans did this to you,” he says, voice sharp. He looks beyond Sanghyuk and then into his eyes. Something in his face seems to resolve and he smiles.

 

“Nevertheless, you cannot stay here. This realm is not for you.”

 

“I have nowhere to go. P-please help me, I’ll do anything.”

 

“Will you now? You know, that’s a dangerous thing to say to the fae, little seal. Can I have your name?”

 

Sanghyuk pauses. The man is so overwhelmingly beautiful, Sanghyuk hadn’t realised that he’d been leaning towards him with every sentence he spoke. He can feel the man’s warmth, can almost hear the twirling flowers move on his skin. Fae… Sanghyuk’s never heard of them before. And there’s something about this man, something so tempting, Sanghyuk wants to give him everything, give him his very soul. But there’s something dark in the set of the man’s eyebrows, in the slant of his smile. 

 

“You can call me Hyuk. What’s yours?”

 

The man’s smile falters and then he stands, pulling Sanghyuk with him. Sanghyuk realises the man is a tiny bit shorter than him, but his wings spread out behind him like a canopy. Despite his shorter stature, the man seems to become even more imposing. 

 

“You haven’t earned my name yet, Hyuk. I can help you, but I expect something in return.” The man’s hands caress Sanghyuk’s face and Sanghyuk finds himself dazed. 

 

“Yes, yes of course. Anything.”

 

The man grins, face almost boyish in mirth and grabs Sanghyuk’s hands, pulling him away. Sanghyuk realises with a chill that the music has stopped. He looks around towards the clearing and sees the creatures crouched, bent at the waist, in the direction of Sanghyuk and the man. The man leading him away seems to grow and grow, golden skin glowing brighter than the flames of the fire.

 

“Come, Hyuk. I have a feeling we’re going to be very useful to each other in the years to come.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on Twitter @fightmehyuk !


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